Life Happens, Keep Going

Shut up and sit down. Welcome to Being On Stage, the only podcast that gives you motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. No matter how you entertain, sing, dance, band, comedian, public speaking, MC, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you. Hey, rock stars. Reggie Dawson, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back. Thanks for tuning in. Once in a while, I think there's something that we all need to hear, and this is the day that I am delighted to say it to all of you. No matter what, you have to keep going. There's going to be times when, you know, maybe you have a bad show. Maybe you, I don't know. Maybe you've got a lot going on in your life. Maybe just the timing just doesn't seem right, but you have to keep going. I've seen a lot of performers give up, like truly, truly enjoying performing, wanting to go the distance, like wanting to do it for a long period of their life or for the rest of their lives. And they stop because as we. We all say life happens, and it can come in many forms. It can come in the form of a job that you, you know, that you're working, that you, you know, have to keep, and you have to, and you, I mean, you couldn't. Hey, maybe you enjoy your work. It could come in the form of family stuff. It could come in the form of, hey, listen, it could come in the form of the holidays, you know. A lot of people have a lot going on in the holidays. Some people have a lot emotionally going on with the holidays. Life happens. Life happens is a thing that we. It does. Life really does happen. But I'm going to repeat myself from the beginning of the podcast. You have to keep going. There's going to be times when it seems easier to stop. It seems better to stop. It seems like maybe it's pointless. And listen, there's also going to be times that you feel like you could do this for the rest of your life. But you. If you want that to happen. You have to. There's no. There's no way you can fail if you keep going. I've heard it said before, and I don't know who originally said it. It was probably some big. One of these motivational speaker guru guys. But you. Or, you know, it could have been like a philosopher, I guess, too. But anyways, here it is. Sorry. Here we go. You cannot fail as long as you keep going. You cannot fail as long as you keep trying. Like, if you keep trying, success is inevitable as long as you keep going. You can't give up. Period. That's the. I guess that's the core of the message. Like, I normally do this podcast in reverse. Like, I normally give you a big story, and then I get into, like, the meaty message. But this is totally in reverse, guys, I've got to tell you. It's been on my mind for a few days now. And I guess I've got to say, just like you, you know, I feel it, too. I have those moments where, you know, life kind of takes over things. And it happens to all of us, you know? And, listen, this isn't. This podcast isn't about me, okay? This podcast is very much about you. It is about performing. But as your. I mean, I'm going to say it. As your coach, as your motivational butt kicker, or whatever you want me to be, I've got to tell you, we all feel it. And I want to be real with you, you know? And I think that that, in turn, as you are real with your audience, maybe not to this extent, you know? But you've got to know, everybody feels this way. Myself included. You are included. The guy down the street. The person sitting next to you in the train. The person on the treadmill next to you in the gym. Your spouse. They all feel, at times, that life just takes over. From your passion. And the holiday period coming up, and I mean really coming up, because by the time some of you listen to this, it could already be past Thanksgiving 2019. We're about a week. Well, we're like five or six days away now. The holidays coming up is a big distraction for a lot of people from what they're working on. Their life's passion. And performers are not excluded, you know? Um. The holidays. The holidays present multiple opportunities, because on one hand, you have an opportunity to spend ample time with your. A lot of time with your family. You know, shopping, decorating, preparing, going to see them, parties, things like that. You have all these opportunities. But on the other hand, as a performer, specifically as a performer, and this probably is true for, you know, entrepreneurs and, hell, parents. I'm sure this is true. I'm sure this is true as well. On the other hand, you have this opportunity to perform or to do what you love a lot more, because of all the events happening. Performers are in desperate, like, desperate need during the holiday season. There's always a party or a festival or some type of an event that you could get in on the holidays. Like, with very short notice, pretty much make a few phone calls, send a few emails, and you'll probably land something with just a video. You know, sending a video along with your message. Like, it could be that easy to get in somewhere at the holidays. So you're presented with these two options, per se. And it's very easy to say, you know, I want to go to this party. I got to go to this family function. You know, I got to go shopping for Christmas. I got to go shopping for Hanukkah. I don't know much about Hanukkah. I'm just using. I'm trying to loop everybody in here, so forgive me. You have all these. All these things that come up at the holiday time that. And I don't want to call them distractions because they're very much things that you should be able to do. And I guess the message here is, you know, you got to balance that time, though. You know, for every party that you get to go to, make sure you give yourself that opportunity as a performer as well. For every time you go shopping, maybe split the day. See if you can perform somewhere in the morning. Go shopping in the afternoon. A lot of places have. Brunch where they want someone to perform or. I don't know. Events, festivals, and things like that. They start in the mornings. Parades, even. So, you have all these other opportunities where you can perform, but you got to find that balance. And I think that that's the most important part of the holiday season is to find that balance between the family and the friend stuff and life happening. Because, you know, God forbid you have a family emergency during this time on top of everything else. I've seen it happen. Like, I've seen it happen with people that I know where they're. All of a sudden, it's like, I got to take custody of these kids or somebody got shot. Like, serious stuff happened to people in this world. I get it. I do. I hear it all the time. But, on the same time, and this is the harsh performance, stage performance coach coming out. At the same time, you. You still have to keep going in your passion. Even if you're falling on hard times, rough times. You have to find a way to make your performance, your shows, your talent a priority. And I'm not saying it's got to be priority number one in any way, shape, or form. Because, by all means, family. I get it. Religion, family, all that. I get it. Number one. Number two. But it does have to be on the list of priorities. And I don't mean at the bottom. You can do this. Like, there's no way that you're not going to succeed if you keep going. You can do this. Like, I want to tell you that. I believe in you. I don't even have to know you to believe in you. Like, that's how strongly I feel about this message. Like, you can do this. No matter who you are. No matter what you do. No matter what you envision on stage. You can do that. But you have to keep going. You have to keep working at it. And you have to make it a priority. And that's something I'm doing a lot in my life right now. Is I'm re-evaluating priorities. And actually, it's not re-evaluating priorities. It's more focusing on what priorities are. Rather than putting them off. Procrastinating. Things like that. Like, I'm doing a lot of work in my own life with that right now. And I want to push you to do the same thing. You know, you have priorities in your head. You have priorities in your heart. But do you have priorities in your actions? That's kind of where we're at right now. You know, life happens. But is this still. Still a priority when all these things are happening in life? Because if not, hey, listen. That's okay. Sometimes things are worse than others. I get it. But when is it going to be a priority again? Two weeks? A month? A year? Come on. Get it back on the priority list. Put your back into it. Give it a little elbow grease. Give some hard work to yourself. Put some work into your talent. Keep moving forward. You got this. there's no way you don't got this And listen, if you want to connect and you want to talk more about how you can move forward and where you can put in the most work and get the most out of it, I'm happy to talk to you. You can get on my calendar. Go to beingonstage.com slash calendar. Put in your name and email. You pick a date and time, and I'll call you. And we'll get your next steps going. I promise you'll leave the 30-minute-ish. Those of you that have talked to me, you know I go over 30 minutes. I plan for like 45. By the time you leave that call, you'll have at least three ways that you're going to be moving forward that you can do like today, tomorrow. All right. Get on that calendar, beingonstage.com slash calendar. And keep on shining.